ssed with a blackness of
despair. And as I got stronger in physical health, the depression seemed
more unbearable, because, in all probability, so many years lay before
me, and nothing in life seemed the least worth while. I often thought of
you, and often--every day--of Daisy, longing, in a way, to see you both,
but knowing that it would be no use if I did, for you would have been to
me like the corpses, the husks of what I loved once. And I did not see
any possibility of getting better or of getting out of this tomb-like
darkness. It was like being buried alive, and getting more alive from
week to week, so that I grew more and more conscious of how black the
tomb was. Every now and then the pall used to lift a little, and that, I
think, was the worst of all."

Lady Nottingham laid her plump, comfortable hand on Jeannie's.

"You poor darling!" she said. "And you would not let either Daisy or me
come to you. Why did you not?"

"Because there are certain passages, I think, which the human soul has
to go through alone. Dear Alice, you don't know all that went to make up
the gloom of those dreadful months! There was one thing in particular
that cast a blacker shadow than all the rest. I hope you will never know
it. It concerns some one who is dead, but not my husband. It was that
which made the darkness so impenetrable. I know you will not ask me
about it. But, as I said, when the pall lifted a little, that was the
worst of all, because then, for a moment it might be, or for an hour or
two, I knew that life and youth and joy were just as dominant and as
triumphant as ever in the world, and that it was I who had got on the
wrong side of things, and saw them left-handed, and could be only
conscious of this hideous nightmare of suffering."

Jeannie paused again, pushing back the thick coils of black hair from
her forehead.

"Quite little things would make the pall lift," she said. "Once it was
the sudden light of the sun shining on one of those red sails; once it
was the sight of a little Italian contadina dancing with her shadow on
the white sunny road, all by herself, for sheer exuberance of heart;
once it was a man and a maid sitting close to each other in the dusk,
and quietly singing some little love-song, so--so dreadfully unconscious
of the sorrow of the world. Oh, that was bad--that was dreadful! Just
one little verse, and then in the darkness they kissed each other. I
knew they were darlings, and I thought they